


Another Chance: Thread

by ilyena_sylph, Merfilly



Series: Another Chance (Pern/DCU fusion) [4]
Category: DCU - Comicverse, Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Multi, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Survival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-18
Updated: 2012-11-18
Packaged: 2017-11-19 00:31:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/567028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilyena_sylph/pseuds/ilyena_sylph, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just as the colony is beginning to thrive and expand, disaster strikes from above, taking many lives and a lot of the healing away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Another Chance: Thread

*~*~*~

_Eight years after Landing_

Dinah was restless, and it didn't feel like mating restlessness, even though it seemed like it was coming from Hope. She moved from the kitchen out onto the porch, to look out at her fields. They'd been in the house for lunch, and it was hot enough out that she didn't really want to go out again all _that_ soon...

Slade came to join her, his body drawn tight under the clothing from the press of sensations he couldn't quite place, and took a long look at her. "You too?" he asked after a moment. 

"Yes." She looked East, her eyes drawn again to the lurid red eccentric that just did not fade so quickly anymore with the sun's rising. "Chakano and Trouble? The boys could be..."

She let her voice fade off, seeing something on the horizon, up in the northeast.

After so long with their dragonet partners, it only took a moment for Slade to reach for Major, questioning him -- and the response he received made him recoil, half in shock, half in disbelief. "Dinah, ask Hope... I don't --"

Dinah concentrated briefly on her dragonet.... and pulled away instantly, almost frightened of the impressions she received. They had more than their original four dragonets looking to them now, but had carefully not Impressed any of them. These wild ones tended to stay for the food, but right now they were badgering Hope mercilessly with thoughts of danger... while Chakano and Trouble relayed nothing but fear.

"That smudge on the horizon, Slade..." she whispered.

Slade tensed worse as Dinah confirmed the images he'd been catching from his little partner, and his face tightened at the idea of yet another foe with the ability to make space-based attacks. //Not again.//

The wild fair suddenly swarmed around the house, inspecting the roof and diving at the humans to make them step back inside. Hope and Major both vanished, only to return stinking of phosphorus.

"Phosphorus? Wh --" a thought struck him, just what pure phosphorus could be used for, but that was preposterous, especially from a species that had so-far shown no ability to use tools at all. "Dinah, we'd better get inside, they've never done this before."

She barely heard him, as that dark smudge was rolling in closer... and then the foliage of the trees along the fields started to change, blight with silver and --

He caught her arm and _pulled_ as the blare of an emergency alert from Landing started to wail further inside the house, " _Dinah!_ "

"Everything..." she whispered, solid shock making her as pale as a ghost under her hard-earned tan.

Hope _screamed_ in fear, her own and her person's mingling together, her whistle climbing to pitches that made Slade flinch back, and suddenly more wild ones were there, swirling around them, trying to push them further into the house.

Major pressed danger at him harder, catching the back of his collar and _pulling_ , trying to make him move inside in his own, more direct way.

"Hope!" Dinah whirled to her friend, pressing images of the fields, of all their hard work -- theirs because the dragonets had been invaluable to her in protecting the plants. She let Slade pull her inside, and her queen pulled herself together and into a leader, listening to the instincts of the wild ones.

Slade relaxed once they were inside with the door shut, and he hit play on the alert, listening to Ongola's voice (tight with strain) repeat a message he could barely believe, //rock, metal -- yes, I know that, Ongola; water? That could be useful... Obviously it's deadly!// even as he watched out the window as every dragonet whirled and teleported in and out of this stuffs' path -- but to his absolute shock, they were actually keeping whatever it was off the ground at the edge of one of the fields... just barely.

"That's the tuber crop..." Dinah whispered. Its value as a staple food was a proven one, having replaced the potato in most recipes on Pern. If they lost all of it, when her fields were feeding at least as much of the population as Landing's smaller ones... she shuddered, frightened and revolted.

He tried to pull her in against his chest, away from the window, aching for his partner's loss -- and his own, much as he had worked with her -- but if that was as dangerous as it looked... He wouldn't, could not, risk letting her away from him.

The fair carefully protected that one field, then followed the deadly rain as it sheeted down. When it hit the house, Dinah flinched violently, all but lost in her fear.

Slade held her against his body tighter at that flinch, one hand up in her hair as he looked up, thankful he'd insisted on the same slate the Galliani's had once he'd talked it over with Caesar -- and he nearly went to his knees as a realization struck him, but he just held her closer yet. //Please... no.//

She felt the shock in him, turning to bury her face in his chest, and sobbed softly. "Can't have... They have to be -- They had the dragonets..."

"I know, Dinah, I know. They'll be fine. They'll be fine, Dinah. They're survivors, they headed east..." he kissed her hair lightly, trying to reassure her. Yes, he was afraid for his sons, but they'd come through the Nathi war on their own strength. They had the sense and skill to get away from something they could see coming. The thought that had nearly driven him to his knees was of the newest, lightest housing material some of the tropical stakes had pushed so hard for; boards made from native, fast-growing plant matter compacted to a higher density than plywood could manage.

Dinah, for all that her work benefited Pern as a whole, was still insular enough that her family came first and foremost in all her thoughts -- where her thoughts weren't consumed by her plants. She held onto him, shaking with her reactions, and as the 'thap-thap' of it striking the house faded, she calmed some. She followed it, though, pulling away from him to go watch the other side of their stake be melted away.

Slade had tried to stop her, catch her back against his body, but she was a quick, strong little woman, and all he could do was follow her to the window, and watch the devastation continue on.

Dinah stood impassively, watching all their hard work be eaten away, still as stone.

His hands slid down her shoulders, gentle and slow, saying her name softly, worriedly. It looked like she was pulling deeper and deeper into her old shell... He wasn't going to lose her to that, either.

"We have to find a way," she whispered, when it moved on past. 

That gave him a little hope that she might come through this without falling so far back into her trauma. "We _will_ , Dinah. The dragonets managed to protect that field, and if their flame -- and who'd have believed that? -- can do that much..." He let it trail off, trying to hold out that hope. //Please, boys... come home.//

She turned on her heel, going outside, letting Hope and a wild queen roost on her shoulders as she went to inspect the things littering her naked fields... then veered to the shed that held their gear. "I'm not taking chances with those things!"

Slade was keeping a wary gaze on the sky as best he could, but he followed her, and quickly saw where she was headed. "Good point, Dinah." He slid into the harness of one of the flamethrowers to go and char the... shell-like things.

*~*~*~

Roy and Dick were both pushing their horses hard, threading through the corpulent shells of the things that had damn near killed everything around them.

Both of them knew, far too well, that their stake, Omaha -- well, Slade and Dinah's, with their allotment tied to it -- was just over the next rise, and it was far deeper in the path of _whatever_ that silver stuff was than they'd been when they'd seen it coming down and ridden for the eastern edge as hard as they could. Trouble and Chakano and half a dozen wild ones had spiraled wildly overhead, diving to spur the horses on faster with claws and wing-tips when they attempted to slow, and they'd made it out of the path. Their horses had been badly lathered at that point, but they'd had more than enough time to wait, and watch, holding on to each other hard between the mares, and just waiting for it to _stop_.

"Almost there," Roy coaxed his mare on, scared of what they'd find, but neither Chakano nor Trouble were reacting like Hope was injured... maybe that meant the adults were safe.

"Please," Dick whispered, hopefully too soft to hear over four sets of hooves. They crested the hill moments later -- and his sheer shock and the way he sat back made his mare stop dead, too tired to do more than throw her head up and blow in confusion... but there was just no way for there to still be green stuff right in front of them.

Roy was just as stunned, and then he saw flames rising from off to the side... and that was Slade and Dinah, in the flamethrower gear they had used to get rid of the growth they had wanted cleared.

Dick saw the same flash of flame, and the breath all went out of his lungs. He clucked to the tired mare under him and she moved at a bone-jarringly exhausted trot towards the comfortable security of the barn, while he tried to get his sheer relief under control, raising his voice to call to them, "SLADE! DINAH!"

As soon as the shouts clarified, because Roy was yelling for Dinah first, and then Slade, the two adults broke away from what they were doing, and ran despite their gear to meet the boys. 

Dick had slid off the mare when she was still moving and practically flung himself into Slade's hold, arms going up tight around his neck as he shuddered in reaction for a few long moments. Dinah's hands going all through Roy's hair and then over the backs of both boys was as therapeutic to her as it was for Slade to clasp each one in turn to him, full hugs of sheer relief. Dick shifted his weight, pressed back into Dinah's hands, and moved enough for Slade to hold Roy, too, but despite that he was twenty-four years old, watching that space-borne devastation had thrown his mind back into some of the Nathi attacks, and now that he was home, safe, all he could do was hold on.

He hadn't lost them. He hadn't lost Roy. Hope and Major and Trouble and Chakano were safe, they'd saved them. Their family was alive.

Dinah and Roy shifted close -- despite the flamethrowers in the way -- to Slade and Dick, just holding on and waiting the shock out, the shudders of near loss wracking them all in different ways.

Dick pulled himself back together after a while, and looked up into Slade's darkened gaze. "I..." He shook his head again, forcing that away, and asked the practical question, waving a hand behind them to indicate the field, "How?"

"The fairs that we attract so frequently," Slade said, shaking his head a little. 

"I told Hope, and they chose this field to save it..." Dinah managed to say, cold shock sweat breaking through her now that she _knew_ Roy and Dick were safe.

Roy's eyes went wide and he hugged her closer. "Wow. Who'd have thought the little flitter-brains could pull something like _that_ off?"

"They just might give us a fighting chance, if this is something cyclical," Slade said, thinking it over. "Remember those circles, Dinah? The ones your department fussed at?"

"Yes." She shuddered, but it started her brain thinking, analyzing. "Sampling at the sites marked on the original survey map indicated that the growth pattern was about 200 years old."

"That eccentric's got a little over a two-hundred-year orbit..." Roy said, his brain a little quicker to gear than Dick's at this point.

"Two hundred fifty or so." Slade said the figure aloud, and Dinah wanted to throw up from how badly her nerves shook her then. //Fifty years of...//

"We'll wait for the heads at Landing to say what it is, before we go jumping to conclusions," Slade added, his voice firm.

Dick nodded, but that thought... he really, really hoped Roy was wrong. And Slade too, for that matter. Had to be the first time in his life that he'd ever hoped for _that_.

"Let's see if we can get everything written down," Dinah said. "After we finish the burn." She looked out over the property. "Slade and I will do that. Boys, go get a carcass out of the freezer for our saviors."

"Trouble and Chaka, too," Roy nodded. "They kept driving the horses, made them run harder to get us out of this stuff's path..." He realized about a minute too late that he probably shouldn't have said that, should have let them just think they'd been out of the way --

The pale white under Dinah's tan, the pinched look at Slade's mouth and eye told him he was right, but the tiny woman just squeezed him once before returning to her task. He reached out and caught her for a moment, then let go to head with Dick to the freezer inside, shaking his head at himself, muttering "Idiot" repeatedly in Din'eh.

"Yep," was Dick's opinion, but they had work to do.

****

The fastest route back into Landing, once the horses had been stabled and everything had been put as much to rights as they could, was straight up through the path of devastation the whatever-that-was had caused... and Dick was grateful he'd said he'd do the flying in. He was -- he hoped, at least -- doing a better job of ignoring it than Slade or Dinah would have. He half-wished they had one of the pressurized sleds, so he could have gone high enough to not so close to the damage -- but then again, seeing the full extent of it might have been worse.

From what he could hear behind him, Dinah was tucked in pretty tightly into Slade's shoulder, and had been since early in the flight. Chakano was asleep inside his own tunic, exhausted from the day's fighting and flight, and Trouble was curled inside Roy's tunic as well. Hope and Major were curled up around Slade and Dinah's shoulders, just as deeply asleep. He brought the comm gear to his mouth and ear and tapped the circuitry, routing it for Vic's personal system. "Pick up, man," he said to the dead air.

"I'm here... and man, it's good to hear you." Vic's voice was tight, strained with far too much emotion. "I knew your stake..."

"Yeah," Dick said softly. "We got hit. We're coming in. From the sound of the comms, Landing can use every hand it can get. Anything you know of that needs done on our way in from Omaha?" That was why he'd called Vic, rather than one of the others. Vic tended to have a good ear for the situation, especially with where he was placed. He asked after a moment, "You and your dad okay?" He'd come to rely on Vic as a rock as far as the shop and Landing's day-to-day affairs went years ago, for him to be this shaken now...

"We're okay, but we do need help. Dick... need you to keep eyes out for," Vic gave him a short list of people who had been out exploring or hunting. "Not much hope at this point, but... we have to keep it, right?" Vic cleared his throat, something else pushing in, but without him knowing how to tell Dick.

"We do," Dick agreed, "and I'll get Roy and Slade watching for them. No ideas what kind of headings they went out on, huh?" He turned backwards for a moment, signing to them 'survivors?' and pointed off the sides. He knew that particular noise of Vic's pretty well, and he stilled against the seat, letting his hand go light on the stick before he asked. "Vic... what is it?"

"I should wait til you're here, but then you'd walk into it. Joel... both his..." Vic took a deep breath. "They were both out hunting, his sons."

Dick heard the protesting squeak of the seat beside him before he realized how tight his hands had fisted, but didn't hear the noise in his throat for trying to correct the sled's sudden waver and the turbines' reactions. He straightened it back out on instinct as his eyes tried to flood. Joel's boys, Junior and Jase, were good kids, and his gruff, taciturn boss loved them with everything he had. Chakano made a restless whine and shifted against his ribs, basically unnoticed in his reaction to the news.

"Oh... oh, _damnit_ , Vic. Th..." he had to swallow to speak, fighting the aching stab of grief. "Thanks for the heads up. I'll see you when we get in."

"See you then. Damn but I'm glad you and Roy are safe." Vic signed off then, letting him concentrate on flying in.

Dick reached up and dragged his hand across his eyes to clear them, and swallowed hard again. //Jays...// the age-old profanity didn't come close to covering how he felt.

"'Mano?" Roy asked softly, even as he kept scanning on the off chance someone might be in the path of all this... destruction, still alive despite the odds. Dick didn't curse with that kind of venom lightly, and the thought of what might have caused it, after everything that'd already happened...

"Joel Jr. and Jase." Dick managed to say. "They were out today..."

"Cri -- Joel's gotta be a wreck." Roy spared a glance at his partner, hoping. "Maybe they..." His voice died away, as the look on Dick's face made it apparent Vic had meant the news as final and confirmed. "Damn."

"Yeah," Dick agreed softly... and then his heart seized up, //No!// The sheer stab of fear made Chakano whistle as he came half-awake. He flipped the comm Roy's way and said quickly, his voice harsh with the fear he was fighting down, "Try Sean." If even Joel's boys had been off today...

"No." Roy was ash white just thinking about it, and Trouble half-roused, making a low unhappy noise. "Rest Day at Landing." He started trying for the vet sheds, and then for the Hanrahans when that failed. Sean never damn well carried a hand unit, and Dick knew it.

"Hello?" Mairi answered, her voice tired but not too badly grief strained.

"Mrs. Hanrahan, it's Roy." He was glad to hear her voice... she'd always been good to him, teased him that with his red hair he must be practically part of the family anyway. "I..." pleasantries failed him, and he just asked the question burning in his throat. "Sorka, Sean?"

Mairi breathed out a long sigh of pure stress. "They were safe. Out in that mess, but their fair -- I'll never fuss about them having so many of them again. They're out now, helping."

"They're okay," he managed to get out, loud enough for Dick to hear, around the shaken relief in his chest, and let himself slump back against the seat. "We're on our way in, too. If either one of them comms in... let 'em know we'll be back soon? Dinah and I'll both probably need to talk to Mar Dook as soon as we get back, but --"

Dick let that news wash over him, talking that little bit of comfort, and turned his full attention to navigating trickier air currents in the higher hills. He half-heard movement, then felt Dinah's hand rest on his shoulder, as she too made herself look for other people on their passage in.

*~*~*

The Landing traffic was bad, kept him from anything but watching his airspace... but the wasted stretches of land alongside the vet and agro sheds hit Dick hard as soon as he had them on the ground. //There's just nothing left.//

Dinah could barely keep from stumbling at the tears in her eyes, even if nothing else showed that she was crying. In the hood behind her shoulders, Hope whimpered sleepily, wings moving slightly with her partner's distress. Slade steadied her, hand around her waist and under her arm, and Dick saw a rigid stiffness in his posture that hadn't been there since the war ended as he looked at their first home here. Dick moved back to them, hand touching Slade's shoulder lightly, then tipped his head towards Joel's small house next to the Stores building. "I've got to go."

Slade nodded down at him. "I know. They'll need you. We'll talk when you get to the house."

As the three of them headed towards the agro sheds, Dick already gone to Joel's, Roy was the first one to spot Mar Dook coming towards them. His entire body went tight as he looked at the expression on the older man's face. He made himself move after a moment, stepped over close to Dinah's side, and laid a hand on her back over Slade's arm. //What on...?//

Dinah pressed into the comfort for a long moment, but then moved forward, finding the ability to have compassion for her colleague from somewhere deep in her. "Mar Dook..." She opened her hands to take his, eyes meeting his fully, seeing the grief in them. "Tell me what you know?"

"Not enough, Dinah," the older man said, his voice rough. "We lost..." He waved a hand back towards the ravaged fields. "Only what we have in the greenhouses is left -- and Ted... He's... Lucy was out hunting, Dinah! David made it back," he named Lucy's long-time boyfriend with a shake in his voice, "but she... David's in shock."

Dinah squeezed her hands around Mar Dook's, eyes closing for a long moment. As much as Roy was her de facto apprentice, Ted Tubberman's daughter Lucy had been Ted's, and despite how much antipathy there was between her and Ted... the thought of that loss tore at her. "I have one field of tubers that remains, but still had plenty of seedlings under roofing. We will find a way. Somehow."

"How do you ha -- did it stop before it got all the way over your stake, then?" Mar Dook looked at her curiously.

"No." She shook her head. "I... I threw every thought of protecting that field at my queen, and the fair of wilds that lives there helped flame it clear." She didn't want to admit to the level of desperate fear and grief that had struck her when she'd seen everything dying. Better for everyone to believe that it had been a conscious choice than nothing but frantic instinct.

Mar Dook stared at her in shock. "Then... you're probably the best off of any of the stakes in its path, because no-one else we've heard from managed to save anything but themselves... and not always that. Dinah, Slade," he paused, and swallowed. "The stakes at Milan, Amsterdam, Bavaria... There's nothing left. They all us --" Mar Dook couldn't finish it, but Roy had to put himself under Slade's shoulder as his friend and foster-father staggered badly.

Dinah looked back at her partner in sheer panic as it really sunk in which stakes had been mentioned. //No, no.// She fought to keep it in check, hating herself for marveling at the light vegetable board they'd finally managed to turn out of engineering, for being so grateful to have found something that would let them build so quickly, that was entirely native. With a hard swallow, she looked at Mar Dook again, her jaw setting. "We will beat this... Pern is OURS and I'll be damned if I give up finding a way to make it work!"

The snap in Dinah's voice pulled Slade out of the shock -- at least somewhat. //The Du Vieux, Holstroms, Ciottis...// the names ran through his head, but they didn't have the luxury right now of falling into grief. Not if this was more than a one-off freak occurrence -- and there was no way they were that lucky. Not when he and Roy both had seen the circles of complete devastation that so echoed the reports of thinner vegetation from the survey team's original report as they came in... He didn't trust his memory of the reports completely, but he did remember that that pattern had been spread planet-wide. He pulled himself back together, nodding at Mar Dook, and more at his lover's words. "You're right, Dinah. ...I probably need to get to Ongola, love." He hated to leave her, especially with this added to it, but he couldn't be useful here. He could actually help Ongola.

"Go, Slade. I have to take stock with Mar Dook. Roy, you need to take yourself over to the Hanrahans, try to hook up with the other young folk." Dinah now had a purpose... and it changed her from shocked victim to capable person so drastically. Slade dipped to kiss her cheek gently, grateful to see her resolved rather than shattered again, and turned to go, picking up into a quick double-time as he headed for the met tower.

"If you don't need me here, Di," Roy said worriedly, cocking his head at Mar Dook to double-check that he wasn't needed in the agro sheds instead. He wanted to see Sorka and Sean, but...

"Like I said, Roy. Go. You know the others will fall in with Sean and Sorka... They're the most capable, outside of you and Dick." Dinah set her jaw and headed for the agro sheds, to see just what species were still viable. Privately, she realized this would push her insistence they use more native plants to take hold further. The native flora had come through this at least once before...

*~*~*~*

Roy heard the door as Dick finally made it in, and pulled himself up out of the chair to go meet him. He'd wound up working with Sean and Sorka, all three of them flying the fastest of the sleds out to all the edges of the hit area, searching for any survivors... and some of the things he'd seen had turned his stomach nearly inside out. He hadn't had that reaction since -- he didn't want to think about that. Or about how many friends they'd all lost in the last day. He wasn't sure how Landing's hospital facilities were going to handle the strain if this kept up.

Dick went into his arms, holding on hard, as soon as he came through the door. Roy closed his arms tight around his lover, not wanting to let go for anything in the world. It was all too fresh, too raw to even think of speaking. Instead, he nuzzled hard at Dick's neck and closed his eyes.

Dinah watched the boys with red-rimmed eyes, her hand still stroking Slade's hair from where he was lying on her lap, across the couch. He had been mostly asleep until Dick came in, so the thought of moving, just yet, was not really high on his mental processes when he saw Roy take the boy into his arms. Roy had him, that was good enough for the moment. If Dick needed him, he would move closer. 

Dick leaned into Roy for long, long moments, then just looked up, hand sliding to cup back behind his neck. "Hey."

"Hey." Roy pulled, wanting to not be on his feet anymore. Dick followed willingly, nearly asleep on his own feet, and he looked over at Slade and Dinah once he and Roy were down.

"Anything we really have to talk about right this minute? I got the casualty lists already..." He shuddered slightly, wondering at the fact that out of the more than twenty that had gone out just from Landing that morning, only Sorka, Sean, and David had made it back -- and he and Roy, of course, but they'd been down on Omaha, hunting their stake, instead. "It was insane at Stores. So many people wouldn't listen to me until I slapped them with what Joel'd already lost. I hated to do it, but... "

"You had sense, Dick. You remember." Slade's voice was gruff with fatigue, and Dick realized after a moment that he was talking about life on Aurigae during the war, about the rationing and scrambling for supplies. 

"We sleep now," Dinah murmured to them. "Only so much can be done."

Roy nodded, and just shifted enough to reach back and flip the light off. He didn't want to be away from them, and from the rustle of cloth across the room, staying together seemed to suit Dinah and Slade, too. Dick tucked closer into his chest, fingers tangling in his shirt, and he just held on.

Dinah settled in front of Slade, his arm around her, and swore to herself she would not lose him, or the two boys that made them both so proud. That meant beating this, and she was willful enough to defy any defeat.

*~*~*~*

Over the klah early the next morning, Dick tipped his head at Dinah. "Did you hear they got a piece of it alive off one of the ships?"

"Yes. Mar Dook went to help." She shuddered. "Hopefully the xenovets can figure something out. Especially with Kitti Ping helping..." The thought of the fragile, ancient -- but utterly brilliant -- geneticist was comforting.

"That'd be good," Dick agreed. "Some better way to get _rid_ of it being what I'm most interested in."

Roy spoke up, nodding. "The circles we saw make it seem like maybe we were right, it's something that's just come back. Heck of a lot better than the whisper that was going around that it might be targeted..."

"Hoyle-Wickramansingh makes more sense," Dinah said firmly, reminding them all of the Oort Cloud theorists. This was far more than a virus, but it was still within their theories.

Slade just nodded, but he didn't like the thought he had, that maybe another, unlicensed colony had been starved off before the survey team. He shook that thought away; his paranoia needed more focus than ludicrous ideas. Those survey teams had been made up of daredevils that had been willing to risk the earliest ships, and the trip the Pern team had made had been an early one. 

"Especially with the way that planet's just come back in through it," Dick nodded. "Not my specialty, and thinking about the kind of distance it's got to be traveling off of it makes me kind of disturbed, but..." He cut himself off, shaking his head in irritation. "Hell, _we're_ not going to get anywhere with that. I just hope they don't keep their mouths shut too long with whatever they find out, or things are going to get ten kinds of awful. People are already scared."

"I trust Boll and Benden. They understand the need for action and for information," Slade said after considering. "Ongola implied there'd be a colony meeting as soon as possible."

"Where're we gonna _put_ everyone for that, Slade? We don't have half enough space here with as many kids as everyone's had... Damn." Dick drummed his fingers, thinking, and filed it to take up with Fulmar if Joel was still not on his feet.

"The Connells' found a pretty big cave system in time to get under cover. If they can talk him into sharing--" Roy met Dick's eyes with a nod about how unlikely that was, with Sean's father being the way he was, but it was a thought. "There'll be space there. And with Garben and Picchu the way they are, there ought to be similar systems under them..."

"Back into the damn caves," Dick's shoulders tightened a little, and he pushed into Roy's body. "Glad Roy and I hadn't moved out to the stake yet, Slade. At least we've got this place firmly settled."

"I'm not giving up Omaha." Dinah's quiet words hit them all, and Slade opened his mouth to contradict her. "I can't, Slade. If I can't find some way to make food grow, caves and cover won't mean a thing."

"We still have the hydroponics," Roy pointed out.

"Do you think people who have been on unlimited propagation will submit to child-limits again? Because that is what it will take, to make our resources stretch far enough if we have to go back to that. No more kids. One to a parent. No, somehow, I have to find a way to protect the fields and make food grow well!"

"Dinah, you're right," Dick spoke up, hiding the shake of his head at her misunderstanding him. He knew she'd never give up the home she'd worked that hard for, and he didn't want to. "I just meant that for right now we've got a place here that we're not going to have to fight for."

Roy paused, looking at her. "Di, how in hell are you going to protect entire fields, when it took everything the little guys had just to protect that one patch?" He believed that if anyone could do it, she could figure it out, but the difficulty...

She looked at him for a long, silent moment. "If people can find a way to turn a tin can in space into a farm -- " As soon as she said it, her eyes widened and she turned quickly to Slade. "Metal? Metal stopped it, yes?!"

"All the metal roofing did, the sleds aren't damaged..." his own eye widened along with hers. "Not without some thickness, but that could be figured out pretty quickly. What are you thinking, Dinah?"

"Tin sheets, louvred along tracks... tilted to catch sun on days that this doesn't attack, closed shut -- means overlapping -- on days it does. Will cut field space some, but it's not so far different than the star shields a farm sat uses to make a day and night cycle. Put enough of a slope to each section, and since water drowns the damn things, they slide off into moats or troughs filled with water... Hell, float quickal on the water and we can burn the corpses of them quick enough." Her hands flicked as she tried to get it across, sketching in the air.

"We've been working in mostly small fields anyway, with the push towards such a low tech-level," Dick pointed out, his eyes dark with the thought of what it would take to run that many giant sets of -- shutters, basically -- but if the other choice was living off hydroponics and burying themselves deep in caves all over again -- he'd take _any_ other option. No matter how hard and how much work it seemed like it would be. "Build 'em high enough to let horses or oxen work under them, of course, but..."

"Doesn't take that much clearance for those placid draft beasts Red's wanting," Roy said, lighting up with optimism. "It just might work," he breathed, and reached out to hug Dick tight to his side. Dick pressed close to his body, hope flickering low in his chest. 

Slade's hand had closed even tighter on Dinah's for that stroke of genius. It reminded him that they all, every single colonist, had backgrounds against which to draw new ideas. It was a good plan, a plan that could _work_ , and it shouldn't be that difficult to figure out the tech specs for them. 

"Thank god Tarvi and Drake have been pushing so hard to get the refineries up and running full tilt," Dick said softly, though his lips quirked at the thought of Drake. Only that man could have gotten an inland sea named after him simply for having seen it first. "There ought to be a record of what they've got stored in what kind of bulk... Matter of fact, I know there is. People will be yelling for protection for their homes first, but most of us built at least with the heavy plastics for roofing..." He dropped his eyes at the memory that some of them hadn't, but --

"At least we have something to offer when we go to the meeting, whenever they have it," Slade said, ignoring Dick's misstep as best he could. Ongola had had a few sharp words for him on that topic the day before, and he'd been right. Building with them had been no-one's fault. "It will bring hope."

The gold of their fair cheeped curiously, rousing from her place under Dinah's hair to look out.

"No, not you," Dinah said with a soft chuckle, but she reached back to scratch at Hope's eye ridge anyway.

"On that note, I've got to go," Dick said as he finished his klah. "I'll get you what of that list I can, Slade, and who's most likely to be able to produce them -- probably Tarvi. He's been in Karachi longer than Drake's been at the Lake -- at least whenever I get back home again, if Chaka decides he'd rather lose the printout on the way." He twisted in Roy's hold to kiss him, whistled at Chakano, and headed out the door as soon as his bronze was settled on his shoulder.

Trouble cheeped a farewell, then nuzzled up on Roy at the worried feeling in his friend, because he and Dick were going to work alone again. Hope preened into the loving caress of her friend, before irritably informing Major that sleepy time was over. Which only caused that bronze to stand and stretch, wings matching neck and tail in length with a full body stretch as he made a sleepy noise.

"Indolent creature," Slade snorted in the direction of his bronze, reaching to stroke Hope gently for a moment. "I seem to have been handed a project, Dinah," he said, a little amused. "Do you still have stock to go through, or...?"

"I need to go. Ted..." She looked crestfallen for the man, closing her eyes.

Roy squeezed her shoulder gently. "He and Lucy were so close. He's got to be taking this bad... or is that an understatement?"

"He's not been seen near Agro. Apparently he's not one to find solace in work, but then, she was both his daughter and his student."

"You two're the only real botanists left, aren't you, Di?" Roy knew they were, but it came out of his mouth anyway. How so many of that specialty had been lost, when they needed them so badly... "Man. And everyone's going to be wanting to know if what we think matches up to the records in the plant life -- yikes. If you need another set of hands to run that data today...?"

"I appreciate it, Roy, but Stores would probably be better suited for you today. With Joel's loss... they're even worse off than we are. Bill Duff came in, and Betty's trying, but --"

"And Dick might have to be pulled back to sleds, if Vic and Fulmar need him," Slade pointed out.

"Yeah, if Dick gets pulled over there because of everyone coming in, they'll need me. Guess I'd better get it in gear and get over there, huh?" Roy rubbed at Trouble's wing-joints for a moment, drained his klah, and headed out the door as well.

Dinah stood, gathered the dishes and put them all where they belonged for later cleaning, while Slade stood and shrugged out the last of the stiffness from a night on the couch.

"Be careful," Dinah murmured softly to him.

"You too, Dinah."

"I just have to go stare at specimens and samples and data." She kissed his jaw, then his lips when he dipped enough, and he snorted softly at her once they had broken the kiss.

"And I have to go stare at schematics until I can figure out how to build what you've come up with. Seems similar enough."

"Alright, love." She pulled free, gathering her smock, before loving on Major so Slade could go.

*~*~*~

Slade looked around the meeting place carefully. Most of the original colonists who had ever taken part in affairs were here. He kept his boys close, with Dinah squarely in front of them, and reinforced, silently, that the flitterbrains were to stay far away.

He received strongly irritated impressions about that in return, but none of them had come to see the crowds.

Dick rose up a little, and waved a hand at Sean and Sorka, both saying hello and trying to get them to come over with them. Sean nodded briskly and guided Sorka over, using his menacing demeanor to get a path cleared. Sean's ability to clear any obstacle made Dick smile faintly, even with the sheer stress of this situation.

He'd heard plenty of the gossip, running as hard in Stores as he had -- getting Joel to close down Stores the day before had only pushed him over to Fulmar's, where trying to manage getting sleds that hadn't been to Landing in months or years had driven all of them half crazy. Then the second wave -- he'd heard some people calling it Fall -- had hit down over Boca, Roma, and Sadrid, and the already fever-pitch of fear had only gotten worse. The storm that had blown up had kept the damage from the Fall from being as bad as the first one, but... it still hadn't been good for anyone's morale.

If they had held off having this meeting much longer, with people so worried and afraid, Tubberman and some of the others who had lost family and friends might have gotten too much backing for the governor and the Admiral to be able to manage. The only good thing about the second Fall was that it had shown people that they were really going to have to cooperate with each other. Trying to get people settled back into Landing had been nothing but a headache for all of them.

Dinah watched the crowd, seeing Ted up towards the front with a faint look of distress. She did not think he was very stable at all, and was refusing to cope with his grief in private. The entire botanical and agrarian team felt his loss, but still... They'd needed him there _with them_ , helping them to go through the reams and reams of old data, through the newer information they'd gotten since, and no-one had been able to convince him to come in. Instead, he had been consumed by hunting for the 'thread' shells left behind when it ran out of things to eat -- she shuddered -- and burning them. Let alone the way he'd accosted Pol and Bay and the rest of the vet team to demand they hand over the one taken off the ship... She was just glad Bay had told her it had already been mostly dead before they gave it up for him to burn.

Slade stroked her shoulder lightly, even as he kept scanning. He thought he saw a few more troublemakers in the crowd, but Boll and Benden both looked competent -- if exhausted -- for the task of informing people of the facts. That they weren't already up on the podium... aah. That actually made sense. If they were going to have to go to the emergency protocols, it would have to be done strictly by-the-book. Despite that, he was sure that they would wind up having the two of them up there, in due time. They were the only ones suited to an emergency of this magnitude. 

As Cabot, the colony's main lawyer, Pol and Bay Harkenon-Nietro, and the other captains of the expedition, Keroon and Tillek, came out onto the podium and started to speak, Dinah listened as they recounted things she'd already been involved with finding. That it was a mycorrhiza, that it was truly brought in from the Oort Cloud by the eccentric planet, that they were going to be dealing with it for at least the next fifty years, planet-wide... She flinched at Ted's raging that they couldn't leave -- but Cabot's firm declaration that they could and would fight this, that they would find a way to make it, made her nod once, hard.

Slade's jaw set in a hard line; they had to find an effective counter-attack and soon.

Dick leaned into Roy as they listened, and snorted softly when a roar went up from Tubberman and several of the others the moment Carter mentioned suspending stakeholder autonomy and going back to a centralized government. 

"What, do they think they can hold out all on their own?" he heard what he was thinking come out of Sean's mouth as some of the others got Tubberman under control, and agreed completely.

"A centralization of resources is the ONLY way we are going to control this," Slade said softly, and some of the nearby folks seemed to agree with him.

Dinah nodded, absolutely amazed at the bullheadedness on display. "It may not be war, but it is about surviving," she murmured.

Once the crowd had settled back down, Dick relaxed a little -- too soon, as Tubberman immediately started bellowing about sending the homing tube back to Earth and the FSP for help.

" _Those_ vultures," he hissed softly, and heard the words echoed all through the crowd. Very few of the colonists he'd ever known had any affection left for the FSP. 

Sean snorted. "Listen to him squeal like a stuck pig. Earth lands here, man, Sorka, and we make for the Barrier Range and stay lost."

Dinah's eyes flashed dangerously. "There is grieving, and there is madness!" she hissed, low-voiced but intent. "I lived too much of my life owned by the FSP!"

Slade nodded; those who lived on the satellite farms were often seen as no more than wage-slaves to the FSP. "We'll keep it from getting to that point, or else," he nodded back at Sean, agreeing with the young man's thoughts on the matter.

Dick tensed as someone called at Joel to take bets on rather or not the FSP would even come, but he seemed to take it all right -- then the next moment Sean was on his feet next to them, calling out. "We don't need Earth mucking around on Pern! This is our planet!"

It took Keroon and Tillek both to get the crowd settled back down enough to even listen, and Jim's firm reminders that it would take at least ten years for anyone to reach them -- as well as reminding all of them just what the FSP had done on other planets -- to settle the crowd at all. But that reminder had pushed some of the rest of the crowd into helping knock Ted down a peg.

Roy was the one to relax a little as the vote some of the others had called for on that possibility carried overwhelmingly _not_ to call for help. "At least most of us have some sense," he muttered.

Dinah reached and squeezed his hand. "No doubt that you and Dick do. And it seems to infect most of the ones your age... and younger." She eyed Sorka and Sean, noting their vehement Pern for Pernese mindset. Sean's loud protests had definitely made her smile -- something that had been rare lately. 

Sorka nodded back at her. "This is _ours_ , and we're not giving it up."

Slade smiled at that fervor, then listened to the debate raging about how they were going to get through this... Jim Tillek and Mairi Hanrahan were going on about the possibility of surviving off the sea, and he looked at his partner when Cabot started listing off priorities. "You or me, Dinah? Your idea..."

"They'll listen to you," Dinah murmured softly.

"All right." He stood up, using his height deliberately as he looked at Carter, and waited for the legist to notice.

"Slade Wilson has the floor," the legist called out, making people turn more to see the one-eyed engineer so many knew from the first days of setup, and if not from those days, from many hours putting up housing and water systems on newly-formed stakes.

"My partner, Dinah, has insisted that there is a way to protect our growing fields, to make sure we have a food supply, while we find a way to beat this menace. She's proposed that we build support posts with giant metal shutters at an angle stretching over the fields. I've been working out the schematics, and it shouldn't take any metal heavier than tin... one we have in abundance on Pern. Simply, they open for sun, and close for this threat, making it slide off. If you have fire pits or water trenches around the edges, the shells die, and the plants live."

Tarvi Andiyar was halfway across the crowd, but he nodded at the thought, as did Drake Bonneau, the operator of Pern's other major mine. "You're talking about shutters, like they use on the satellites to make a night-day cycle," the one-time pilot called to him. "They'd have to be massive, Slade."

"We break the fields up into oxen lanes.... three to four lanes for the oxen to plow through. That should keep it manageable." Slade had worked that out in his head, considering the stress on the metal versus minimum thickness for being proof against this menace.

"If it means the difference between real nutrition for _everyone_ , with no need to institute birth limits, or hydroponics and population control? We can find a way to do it!" Dinah added in support of her idea.

"We can do the extruding," Tarvi added, the pride in his camp obvious. "It will take time, but this... this can be done. And every field we can protect is one we do not have to rely on hydroponics for -- though yes, we will need them for a time."

Dick saw more than a few women turn towards their partners and spouses at that, and remembered just how _many_ of them already had multiple children. Even Sorka's mother had had another baby, if not two. He couldn't always keep those numbers straight, especially since she ran one of Landing's remaining childcare centers. There were always babies around her place, and she mothered them all. He saw the slight smile on Benden's face, too, turned towards Dinah as the admiral realized the spacer woman had been the one to come up with it.

"That might protect field space, Slade," Caesar Galliani called, "But it's not going to do a thing about the herds, and we have to have livestock, too."

"Drive 'em," Dick and Roy said overtop of each other, and despite the seriousness, the synchronicity drew a few smiles.

Roy took the initiative to continue. "Dick and I were close to the edge of it... our little dragonet friends drove us to outrun the mess, to get to the other side. Once we have patterns..." He looked for Ongola and Keroon at that. "We can do drives."

"It falls in a 50 klick wide path, boys," Caesar said, shaking his head, and Dick glanced at Roy then answered.

"And if we've got more than a few hours warning -- and with everything the astro teams can do, surely with more time we'll know more than that -- they can be driven that far. Or back under shelter, or even into the water if we have to. We had stock drives thousands of klicks long, with thousands of head on Aurigae before the -- well, before. So what if we have to run some of the meat off of them? They'll be healthier for that than they will be if we stable 'em all the time, don't tell me they won't. Red?"

The vet looked up, thought about it, and nodded. "A bit of tougher beef on the hoof is worth it to have meat at all."

"It'll take time to get any of that setup, Slade, Tarvi, Dinah," Cabot called, "and right now, we're going to be stretched very thin. I'm still asking that we consider a reversion to centralized authority, and that we reinstate Governor Boll and Admiral Benden as our leaders. Governor Boll kept her planet fed during the Nathi embargo, and for defensive strategy, the Admiral is our best resource.

"I'm calling for a show of hands now," he continued, "and we'll do a full referendum once we know exactly how long this is going to last."

Tubberman, of course, started protesting again, but now, most people were willing to ignore him, fueled by the hope and determination of so many of the rest of them.

The governor and the admiral accepted, to no-one's surprise... but Dinah was shocked at Cabot's cold-bloodedness at admitting he'd held off giving them the worst news until he was certain that they would pull together. That the astro teams had begun to piece together the pattern was comforting, though. Fall the next afternoon, though... on Malay and Cathay... That was so soon -- and the shocked cries from Chuck and Chaila Kimmage startled her -- but then, they had just barely reached the meeting in time. She'd seen them running from their sled to get to the edge of the crowd before Cabot began.

The Admiral leapt up onto the platform, calling for volunteers to man the sleds and flamethrowers during the Fall the next day. Dick looked at Sean for a long moment, then Roy, while Sean checked with Sorka, and the decision was that easy. He and Roy would go to pilot, while Sorka and Sean worked with the ground crews. Dinah and Slade were going to be too badly needed elsewhere, working in their specialties, for them to go.

***

Dinah had a bare moment's warning as Major was suddenly inside the house, cringing and eyes whirling red, stinking of the phosphorous stone he chewed to spit flame. He emitted a few furious sounding warbles and Hope came erect, emitting anger on a band that Dinah could not ignore, just before she heard the voices of her partner and his boys...and their friends, she thought. Staying at Landing was hard enough, when she wanted to get back to her fields, but there hadn't been enough time, and they couldn't waste the sled batteries anyway. She'd half expected all of them to just stay down at Malay for the night, that had been the word off the comms, but apparently they'd had other ideas.

Strangely, it was Dick that was first through the door -- slam of it echoing through the house; and Chakano on his shoulder was every bit as unhappy as Major had been, half turned around, the tail end of a sentence in her ears. "...what they thought they were doing, Slade?!" 

Roy was right behind him, hand reaching for his shoulder, while Sorka and Sean were right behind the two of them, though by the fury on Sean's red face, he would have preferred to be alone.

Dinah quickly set about placing the restorative stew she'd made up for them anyway on the table, keeping her ears open as she did so. Major and Hope took themselves up into the corner nook Slade had made for them, so they could see everyone, Hope taking the time to groom her mate as she did. 

"Too many green pilots up there, I agree... Where the hell were the veterans?" Slade growled. "Between that and the wilds being fired on..."

"We're going to be bloody lucky if we c'n get half of 'em to come back an' help us the next time, those idiots," Sean threw in, nodding over at Slade once, sharply. "How they think we can do this without the wilds to help, with what we've already been through. I mean, we did as much for them as we could before you lot coaxed us to come back with you, but..." 

Roy sighed, closed his eyes, and tried to be the one calm redhead in the room, because Sorka was as mad as her partner. "They were scared -- and stupid, I know. Damn stupid. But no matter how mad it's got us, what we _need_ to be thinking about is how to coax the wilds to still help. As to that, Slade, the vets we _did_ have up there are about all that let them finally get some damn control over things."

"We don't have the energy packs to spare for drills in the air," Slade growled in frustration, shaking his head. "I'm going to have to rig up some mock boards and have the veterans rote-drill them on the controls on the ground..."

"And as far as coaxing the wilds go, I'll talk to the veterinarian sheds and the food corps to give me the scraps and culls, to feed them in the morning," Dinah said softly. "I know where a lot of the local fairs used to congregate in the area, and I'm sure Hope can help me find them," she added. That got a cheep of agreement.

"Good idea," Sorka said at Dinah's words, and tired as she was, her back went a little straighter. "I'll come with you, if you want. Maybe if Hope and Blazer can coax some of them to come in, we can help the ones that got singed by idiots." 

"Wish we could use the sims in the shuttles, but the controls are just too different," Dick said, shaking his head. "I think we've got the parts between the sheds and Stores to do just that, Slade. We can run those off electric power. I know they had to glide-land half a dozen or more, which means the packs'll be down for days. Fulmar'll be too busy, but Vic'll help, I'm pretty sure. What I'd give for _one_ good heads-up display..."

Roy considered the training problem for a long moment. "I might be able to scavenge some boards and stuff from Joel, he ought to be glad to have it off his hands. Vic's good at putting things together, right?"

"I'd be glad of the help. Maybe we can find some of that broadleaf Medical has been testing, the one that makes fingers go numb," Dinah said to the redheaded girl. "It would help."

"Yeah, he is," Dick nodded, "I know he's probably working with Fulmar right now, but I'll try and get him on the comm. When's the next Fall?" 

"Too damn soon!" came from several voices at once, followed by Slade's, "1930 tomorrow, but not over any stakes."

"They're still planning to fly it," Dick put in, "we won't get anything done before then, but... maybe we'll catch a break after." Then Sorka, Sean, and Dinah put their heads together on the matter of the fire-lizards (as everyone was calling them now, even Sorka); while Dick tried to get a hold of Vic as Roy and Slade discussed what they would actually need for the mock-ups.

***

It was a few days before Dinah had been able to get back down to her fields... and the sight of the one saved field still standing there, so green helped to strengthen her resolve. Slade was long since off to the Karachi mines to begin setting the extruders with Tarvi's help. With him away from her, Dinah had wanted to come home, to continue her tests with the native plants in her labs. For the flora to survive the onslaughts of this attacking organism, they had to have adapted specific evolutionary trends. If she could isolate them, she'd be able to help the other agronomists apply selective breeding to the foreign plants the colony insisted on keeping.

Slade had found Tarvi an easy man to work with, as both of them were of the mindset to 'get things done' with as little fuss as possible. It was hard work, but they would get at least Slade's lands shuttered, and get them through testing as fast as they could, to know if they had a feasible solution for foodstuffs beyond the hydroponics already being set back up in the caves near Landing. He found himself admiring Tarvi's wife's skill, as she wrangled both the camp and their kids with a fine hand. She would be needed in due time as a pilot, but for now, her experience running Tarvi's camp was too needed. Her perseverance at everything she put her mind and hands to was enough to demand respect, especially as she made it obvious she was just doing what she thought was right.

Back in Landing, Dick, Roy, Sorka, Sean, and Vic were running at double-speed, trying to help get the ground crews in better shape and trained, the sled crews working together better -- in the space between Falls; and still trying to win back the trust of the wild fire-lizards that had gotten so badly hurt during that first attempt to fight the Fall from the air. Dick and Roy had wound up transferred over to Drake Bonneau within the first couple of Falls, and both, grudgingly, had to admit that despite all of his bluster, the man had a gift for making the most of what they'd cobbled together in order to teach everyone that was shipping in to try to help.

Vic got pulled away from them to help service the Admirals' gig in order for Kenjo Fusaiyuki to attempt at stopping it while exo-atmospheric -- which had met only limited success, though it had helped thin out that particular Fall. It just wasn't going to be enough benefit for the energy expenditure it cost, though, the top brass of the colony had all agreed.

By the time a new Fall was threatening a populated area, Landing had swollen far beyond its regular capacity, and Sorka and Sean had given up their place on Irish Square to move in with Dick and Roy, freeing up as much space as they could. The big ranchers were in and out, maintaining their herds as best they could, trying to arrange ways to protect them -- or drive them -- when Fall came. Sorka's mother, Mairi, had been completely pulled into running childcare for the dozens of children whose parents were all, suddenly, desperately needed in the air or on the ground to protect the planet, as had some of the other less technologically-skilled parents. At least Keroon and Clissman were busy plotting out trajectories to get the most warning out there.

***

Dick's head came up from where he and Roy were working on throwing something together for them for dinner, as Blazer, Sean's queen, popped into the air above and shrieked, gathering the rest of their fairs up with an imperious whistle, before all of them vanished again. Barely a moment later, Sorka came through the door. "Hey, Sorka.. what's wrong with Sean?" 

"I have no idea... the Admiral commed down, wanting to meet with him, but I haven't heard anything since, Dick." 

Roy shook his head. "Saw Sallah today, she looked gre--" he'd started to say, but he broke off as the door slammed open again, and Sean stalked in.

"The absolute farking idiot of a man thinking -- no, not thinking -- that we can have a flaming cavalry crew..." It went on, with claims of dubious ancestry being thrown at the man that Sean normally supported and respected.

Sorka's eyes went wide even as she tried to get him to give them more details, moving over to pour all of them a drink, while Roy kept an ear on the curses and sorted through just what Sean had said.

Dick was listening, too, and thinking about the very few times he'd ever seen Sean lose his temper. His friend normally kept himself under a very tight rein, and watching him lose his control like this... He couldn't help but remember that it had been a pretty similar incident that had finally pushed Sean into admitting that he loved Sorka. Finally, Sean wound down enough that they could try talking to him. "So the Admiral wanted to talk to you because he was thinking about trying to run a _cavalry_ unit with flamethrowers. You got him straightened out on just how much horses hate fire, and he changed tacks?"

"Yes," Sean bit out. "And then he gives me the vision of squadrons of flaming lizards and the fact he needs one like right now."

Roy snorted. "Never mind basic biology that they're not making nests right now, right?"

"Which I'm sure Sean told him," Dick said with a shake of his head and a wry smile at his friend -- which only served to set Sean off again, pacing up and down, fuming and snarling his opinions as Sorka watched him.

He knew all of his redheaded friends pretty well, and they'd never seen Sean this furious. He could almost see the desire building up in Sorka as she watched the man she loved move, all lithe grace and dangerous temper. It would be frightening in its intensity if he hadn't lived with Slade for half his life. None of them had many friends outside of each other and Vic, though Sorka had several girlfriends she was close to. Most of the girls didn't take to Sean's reserve well, calling him cold and standoffish, when really he was nothing like that. Taciturn, quiet, and one that kept his own counsel most of the time, yes, but... not cold. Sure as hell not cold now, he thought, hiding the smile in a move over towards Roy. 

Sorka listened to one more snarling set of phrases, then stepped in. "Sean, now... the Admiral did pay you quite a compliment, calling on you instead of anyone else. Didn't you notice he's been watching us handle our fairs? And you're the best at finding out where the queens hide their nests..."

Sean stopped, and considered that. "I suppose..." It was then he noted the conspicuous absence of their fair, of even the pair that looked to Dick and Roy. "Where'd they get off to?"

"Smarter than the admiral, Sean -- they took off out of your way," Roy chuckled, his fingers tangling in Dick's.

Dick chuckled himself as Sean shook his head slowly. "Huh. Guess they were pretty smart. I'll find our idjit admiral an egg once there are eggs, I guess."

"At least you guys did manage to coax some of the wilds back," Dick said, then noticed the way Sean's hand had settled on Sorka's cheek, trailing down to her chin. He looked up at Roy, asking with his eyes if there was a good way they could get out the door to let Sorka finish settling Sean down in the way that worked best.

"True," Sean said, only half aware of anything but Sorka.

"I've got to get over to agro... Dick, can you help with getting the rest of Dinah's test kits?" Roy prompted quickly, knowing that tone in the voice of his friend.

"Yeah, I'll come lend you a hand, Roy," Dick agreed as he turned to shut the cooker off so that nothing would burn while they were gone, and they got themselves out the door even as they heard Sean and Sorka heading upstairs.

Roy grinned at Dick once they were outside. "One track mind once she gets that look in her eye..." he told his partner.

Dick shrugged a shoulder, looking up at Roy with a wicked grin on his lips, "Who could blame her? I mean, did you _see_ him all flared up like that?"

Roy through his head back and laughed, before pulling Dick up against his own body, kissing him in the shadow of the living quarters. "You've got a good point."

Dick purred, low in his throat, and pressed up against him, kissing him again. "I thought so," he agreed smugly. "So, did she really leave test kits up here, or do we have to kill an hour or so?"

"I did promise to check if she had. She's missing a couple of her kits she used to check soil. But she also said a lot of kits got 'misplaced' when Ted Tubberman took off out of there." Roy shrugged. "We go look, and ...kill time."

"Alright," Dick said with a chuckle, and slid back down to his feet to head that way. 

***

Roy had come over to the vets' to explain Dinah's latest notes on the plants the fire-lizards sought out after Fall to Pol and Bay. He forgot all about it as he caught the chatter between them over what would be needed to 'make them big enough' and 'pliant' to the needs of the moment. It quickly sunk in they were talking about re-engineering the fire-lizards into something more useful for their survival, and he froze, listening until they quit talking. He stuck his head in and coughed as though he'd just gotten there, finished his errand for Dinah, then took off at a dead run back towards the house, Trouble flittering around him in concern until he was back in the door.

"What _now_?" Sorka asked, looking up from one of her mother's casseroles even as Dick dragged his head up out of the components he was working on on the living room floor. Sean rolled over from the half-sleeping cat nap he'd been snatching on the couch. "What's going on?"

"They're going to gene engineer the fire-lizards! Make them big enough to ride!" Roy said, his voice rushed.

"What?" Dick shook his head as if he didn't believe his ears, bringing his fist up to knuckle at one, even.

Sorka shook her head, too. "But, doesn't that violate the edicts -- wait. Do we care? How do they think they can do it, though, without better medical tech?"

"Kitti." Roy named the ancient Japanese geneticist, one of the very few who had ever been allowed to study in the halls of the alien genegineers of Beltrae, then shook his head incredulously, even as he started repeating every bit of the conversation he had overheard. "...and we're all going to be in on the process. Because they said they were going to pull all the life science apprentices to run the sets."

Sean stopped to consider that. "It might -- just might -- mean the difference between surviving and beating this." He refused to believe they would be defeated by the Falls.

"I know Joel and Fulmar swear we can't make it more than another five years before we kill the sleds and the packs beyond all of our ability to repair. I think we can make them go further if we don't fly anything we don't have to, but nobody's _listening_ to me on that," Dick growled, frustrated.

"They don't want to give up any land," Sorka said, half-sympathetic, "But they're just setting us up to lose _everything_. How are those shutters coming along, Roy, have you heard from Dinah or Slade?"

Roy settled into a chair after he spun it backwards so he could prop his arms on the back of it. "Slade said they've got the first field, the one the fairs protected, under them, but they haven't tested them against a Fall. I think he said it's due to come over them next Fall. He's pretty confident... but the effort's got to pay off the first time to justify the manpower and cost in metals."

"Makes sense. But it will work. Common sense... block it off its food and then drown it." Sean added that to the conversation, already thinking about the project.

Dick nodded, "Yeah, you know this and I know this, but with everyone screaming for metal to cover house roofs and stuff... Something that has to be engineered more and takes more time and manpower..." he shrugged. "Anyway. Back to this idea they've got... can you imagine? One of our little guys, big enough to ride?"

Sean looked over at Sorka. They both knew breeding for traits, and had gotten fairly far in their genetic studies, as well. "In theory," Sorka told them all, after a few moments to think. "Maintaining life forms of that size, delivering the right nutrients... That's actually going to need to be thought out just as much as the actual creation-process."

Roy considered it for a few long moments, then shrugged. "The adapted sheep and cattle are showing high boron contents in their tissues. And there's always the sea-life. If they can do it, we can figure out how to feed them."

Dick nodded and moved enough to lean over on Roy's leg while they talked some of the rest of it over. They hadn't really needed another major project piled on top of them, but this one... this one could make all the difference in if they were wiped out, just survived, or thrived the way this planet had seemed to be meant for. And for his part and Roy's... they'd lost one world, they damned well weren't going to lose another while they had anything resembling a chance to save it. So it was time to roll up their sleeves a little higher, remember all of their science training, and start helping. Sean and Sorka would be in the thick of it, and see it through. This planet was theirs and they would not lose it while they drew breath.

***

Over the next few days, Dick was damn thankful he'd never been closely tied to the life science teams professionally, because Roy, Sean, and Sorka were spending almost every spare minute over in the labs as Kitti Ping's eyes and hands. All of them were working to figure out the little firelizards' genetic code in preparation for the attempt at engineering a rideable version of their little friends. For his part, he was nearly as busy. When there wasn't Fall to fly, and then engines to repair, he was with Drake and the others helping train those still sledding in from outside stakes. He hadn't seen some of them in years, and he was still impressed by Sallah's quiet, sharp confidence. The shuttle pilot who'd brought so many of them down safely was quick to learn, and her no-nonsense personality made her a natural choice for another leader as soon as she'd picked up the tricks to fighting the Thread.

He wound up on the outside of a conversation between most of the one-time pilots, listening as Drake exclaimed to the group he'd been closest to. "I have no idea how old Kenjo's doing it, guys -- and gals," he amended at Barr's glare. "He's doing all of the pre-flight himself --"

"And pissing Fulmar off doing it, too," Dick added in, making Drake nod before the tall man went on.

"Those gauges just aren't dropping at all, and with what he's been doing while he's up there, I just don't get it." Drake shook his head. "The patches he cut in the last Fall, and all the test material he's picked up..."

"Oh, you mean the blank spots that nearly got half a dozen of our kids maimed because they didn't figure out how to compensate for them?" Sallah asked, and her brow creased a little in thought. "Well, if anyone could..."

"It's him," Barr said with an exasperated sigh, shaking her head as the rest of them agreed.

****

Dick looked up from the dinner he was working on at home as a series of sharp raps practically shook the doorframe, and he got up to go answer it with Chakano chirping on his shoulder. Welcoming chirps, so at least he wasn't someone that he didn't want to see.

"Vic, man?" he asked once he opened the door and saw the tall cyborg standing there. "What's wrong?"

"...Stev Kimmer is what's wrong," Vic growled, stepping inside. "The Admiral finally ordered him back from Big Island, and where's he get stuck but _my_ shop?! I mean, sure we appreciate the metal he brought with, but..." he just growled quietly, flexing his hands.

Dick groaned at that news, closing his eyes. Of all the people he didn't want to work with... Roy sighed sharply. "Does that mean Bitra will be joining the pilot teams?" he asked.

Dick flinched at the very thought of the arrogantly beautiful, almost carelessly cruel astrogator's presence on the teams that had finally gotten fully into the stride of working together. She'd be sure to cause nothing but havoc, with her way of wrapping anyone she thought would be an advantage around her fingers. He'd heard someone say, early on, before she'd gone out to Big Island, that she used her sheer attractiveness as a weapon, and unless she'd changed, that was something they didn't need. But Vic was shaking his head.

"Kimmer said _she_ flew back weeks ago. He was actually pretty steamed about it, so I believe him. For whatever that's worth."

"Not sure if that's a blessing or a curse," Dick sighed. "Now we don't know where she is."

"Why'd someone like her ever come to Pern anyway?" Vic asked. It was a question that had been on the minds of those unfortunate enough to know her for years.

"Who knows?" Roy shrugged, then collapsed back into his seat. "I am so worn out, I really don't want her to pop up. Flying Fall is hard enough without a viper in the nest."

"You said it, 'mano... and man, would she hate the comparison, but tunnel snake just about suits her personality," Dick said, then waved a hand at Vic. "Sit on down, man, and we'll figure out how to handle Kimmer and his bull in a china shop crap."

Vic nodded and dropped onto a seat with a faint creak as the three of them settled to work that out.

****

Dinah was confident in her partner's ingenuity, but she did let him persuade her back into the house to watch the field test of the shutters. She activated the controls, watched them slide from vertical to horizontal over the field of tubers, and waited. The trenches around the field were filled by water diverted from her rain barrels, and the slope of the shutters should -- no, _would_ \-- push the Thread into them to drown.

"It will work," she breathed, as the ominous cloud came into sight. "It has to."

Slade wrapped his arms around her from behind, holding her in against his body. "I know, Dinah."

Tarvi Andiyar nodded. "The design is sound," he reassured them both, calm as ever.

Slade was optimistic too, but he wouldn't say it until he'd seen the design in action and knew it worked. It was sound in theory, and he watched from the window. They'd sent Major and Hope to the boys to keep them from flaming the Thread, and all there was to do was wait...

The coming Fall rolled on fast as it ever had, and he looked away from the barely restored growth being reduced again to nothing to the shutters as it rolled up to that point. The shutters had been designed to overhang to the east, so that the slanting Fall was all caught... and he barely bit back the cry of relief as it did catch. The Thread hit and slid down into the trench.

Dinah let out a triumphant cry, turning in Slade's arms to kiss him soundly before she took hold of Tarvi and hugged him despite his reticence. "It worked, oh jaysus it worked!" she said again. She pulled free entirely, waiting for the deadly rain to pass by the house's position so she could go and be sure the Thread had drowned, that the shutters were relatively undamaged.

Slade was startled at Dinah's sudden, exuberant demonstration, but he had hugged her back just as fiercely before he let her slide out of his arms. It seemed as though that Leading Edge took longer than it ever had to pass, not aided by his mind almost falling into the quick-time of battle before finally it was safe for them to leave the house and run for the shuttered field. Dinah went under to check on the plants -- not that there would be anything left if the shutters had failed -- while he and Tarvi pulled the ladder out from under the shutters to go up and check how they'd survived the Thread.

"It looks as if we got the right alloy, the best thickness," Tarvi said, finding only impact dents in a few spots near the edges. 

Dinah went and looked at the plants, then at the trenches with the bloated, dissolving Thread shells. She was grimly satisfied, and picked up her flamethrower to go and get rid of the ones on her barren stretches of land.

"Yes it does, Tarvi," Slade agreed, smiling with the relief of it. "...We did it. We can do this." They might spoil some of Pern's lovely surface with the shutters, but they would have the grain crops they needed so badly, and they were better than the Thread had done.

"Then we'd better get on the line with the Governor, Slade. She needs to know."

Slade nodded and climbed down with Tarvi to go and contact Governor Boll.

****


End file.
